Jabo

Damn, I'd buy that myself! Ditto all the above m8, but I had to spend extra on one particular item it'd be the gfx card - NVIDIA's current 8600/8800 series are very good but the top spec models can be pricey - shop around for the best deals. Mind you, I'm running the game on a card that's a a few years old with no frame rate problems (well, only occasionally) at very high quality settings - can't squeeze to 'perfect' tho

~S~ Enforcer - couldn't agree with you more m8 Jabo

~S~ Campi, glad to have you aboard - made a nice kill in that P-39 of yours on Tuesday night as well... Jabo

Hey hey,

Yep - I'd agree it's a Flanker, although one of the early ones, the later Su-30 derivation has dinky canard foreplanes. This photo's been floating around on the web for yonks and the current belief is that its a fake and this is actually a stationary aircraft with the landing gear digitally removed for two reasons (which I didn't notice) one being that there's no blurring of the background which you would certainly get with an aircraft moving at speed, and two that there's no evidence of exhaust from the engines. I'm no expert in these matters, but if it is a fake it's a damn good one. Saw the Su-30 a couple of years ago at a show (can't remember whether it was Farnborough or the IAT) and as you say Jim, it's a big ol' airplane, but I remember those pilots really throwing it about the sky...Nice work Jabo PS. Good photos those, I'm not normally a big fan of airliner piccies, but there's some nice ones there

Indeed,

Some more of these... P: Autopilot tends to drop a wing when fuel imbalance reaches 500lbs. S: Flight manual limits maximum fuel imbalance to 300lbs. P: Unfamiliar noise coming from No2 engine. S: Engine run for three hours. Noise now familiar. P: Pilot's clock inoperative. S: Wound clock.

Velcome back Highlander

I thought it was just a newer version? Jabo

~S~ Fumps Amazon's a good bet, I've been doing a bit of idle googling around this issue, and they're currently the cheapest I've managed to find doing this game mail-order with the item in stock (@ £19.95). 'GAME' (the store) is cheapest at £9.95 (makes the £40 I paid for it look a bit sad), but they've no stock at present. I'd pop into your local store and see if they'd match that price before trying Amazon though. Incidentally, if you need a headset/mic combo, I've got a HP set going begging. Yours for the cost of the postage if you want (drop me a PM) Cheers Jabo P.S. Honorary blonde? Hah, wait til you've been here a couple of months...Lots of 'notes to self' are the order of the day for some of us...

~S~ DT Just to clarify a point m8, I was referring to 'files' placed on the desktop rather than 'shortcuts', which are rarely reported as more than a Kb or so, and therefore shouldn't place too much load on the system. Jabo

~S~ GK, got one of those on order, so that info will be v. useful Can't beat a good firtle eh Sid?

Welcome Fumps, I think you'll like it here, don't worry too much about taking off and as for landing...weeell, I'm not really the guy to discuss that with... Hope to catch you online soon Jabo

~S~ chaps It appears that some of you fellows with new NVIDIA cards are having some problems particularly with vertical shear. It occurred to me that sometimes 'new' drivers from NVIDIA don't always work as well as they might, and perhaps this was the problem. These are third party drivers from NGO, and I'm making absolutely no definitive claims as to whether or not they will a) work, not work, c) cause the end of the universe - although the the last one's unlikely. Download them here I suggest the way to install them would be to uninstall your current driver set first (having made sure your current driver installation file is safe if necessary) rather than trying to install the new ones over the top. The file will be available for the next seven days via yousendit, and then I'll find out how to post it into the Vault if it's useful for people. TTFN Jabo P.S. These drivers are only for cards with the following GPUs * GeForce 2-8 Series * GeForce Go Series * Quadro Series * GeForce/nForce IGP (Integrated GPU) Series Supported OSes * Windows 2000 * Windows XP * Windows 2003 Please don't install them if you don't have the above as I really don't know what will happen

Oh wow GK, those shots of the carrier are sweet. Thought when I started reading this thread it looked like you were on the verge of getting a hot machine. Must remember the Aldi/Lidl thing cos it looks like a great deal, although I'd probably just do a straight guts transplant from the stock case to mine (I know it's sad, but I do like my PC case....)Just off now (yeah, I know it's 3:30 but I can't sleep) to have a fiddle with my gfx card to see if I can squeeze another erg out of it... Jabo

~S~ Colin, I'm with you on this one, I always understood that files (as opposed to shortcuts) stored on the desktop was a significant problem in terms of memory usage particularly on startup, so moving files stored on there to another folder is always a good plan. Not 100% certain about 'My Docs' as it's a system icon rather than one placed there by an installation, but if it works for you I guess it's all good. I'm going to remove it from my machine and benchmark the whole thing again to see - Given my current rate of success with these PC thingies (technical term), I'll probably break the machine again and I'll see you all in a month... Jabo

Hah! Welcome to the UK - BT are currently refusing to admit my connection problems are down to their useless fuggin hardware - I've just got off the phone after another hour-long discussion about the WIFI card in my machine playing up (which it isn't) and not the HomeHub (which is). Why won't some people understand!!!! AAAARGHHH!!!

I like this game! Y & T - Midnight in Tokyo From afar I have come ’Cause you called to me A guitar was the sound that you heard Like a song on a wave From across the sea Like a vaguely familiar word The ring of fire won’t discourage me Though the earth moved under my feet The day that we touched And now, I’m here with you But now, I’m wanting to Get back to my home and the ones I miss so much CHORUS: Midnight, midnight in Tokyo Where the neon lights the land of the rising sun Midnight, oh midnight I must go But one day I’ll return if you’ll only wait for me In each place I can feel the warmth of you In your face I can see that you’re strong And respect is what I’ve learned from you When I’m gone, it won’t be for long I ride the bullet through the heart of you Though the winds will blow And the rain will fall when I’m gone But now, I’m here with you And now, I’m wanting to get back to my home And the ones who miss me so much I dunno, all that work to get an 'O' at the end of the title so Psycho could have another go with his entry... Later Jabo P.S. Nice to see you back on the forum BG - Hope you had a nice holiday

~S~ guys Picture the scene...I was struggling with hugely c**p frame rates for the game on Tuesday with Task Manager showing the game as using 97% of the available CPU cycles, and generally everything naff. Stripped and rebuilt the PC over the last couple of days and reloaded all the software - one hitch tho, everything's still FUBAR. Much scratching of head ensues, until I go into IL2 setup and lo and behold the graphics are still set to the default (OpenGL) not DirectX which my card seems to prefer. AAARGGGH! I still won't be able to hit anything, but I can once again crash smoothly. As the subject says - Sigh Jabo

Ooops - got the wrong end of t'stick methinks

Indeed, count me in too...I'm likely to be there from Friday morning through to Saturday evening, so there's a (small) possibility of me getting a round in at the Red Lion on Friday night, specially if you chaps are all coming down (up - sorry Painless) on Saturday . For anybody who's there on the Friday, I'll be in the Red Lion at lunchtime and then again in the evening. I wonder if that waitress still works there... Incidentally, just to whet the appetite, there's a distinct chance of there being two P-38s at Dux this year (Glacier Girl + one other) and if the Messerschmitt Foundation can be persuaded to let one of their 109's across the ditch...Roll on July! I'm going to Duxford at some point in the last two weeks of April (got some holiday to use up) - anybody fancy a trip? Oh, and Friar, if you want to kip in the back of the car, you're most welcome (don't worry, you won't have to share it with anyone!) Jabo

Hmmm, yep, I agree with Klinger, although I 'spect I'll be going down the quad-core route at some point over the next 12 months - might even try Vista (but then again - nah). It's a good idea to bang in plenty of decent memory though - I'm currently running 2Gb of DDR2 400 Corsair RAM (nothing to do with the F4U

Hmm, it seems a little expensive for us mere dogz (except Jim of course) especially as there's nowhere to rest the beer? Jabo

ROFL! Great stuff Pup - Think I'll have to DL that to the phone Jabo

Hi C_G Regrettably, as my Grandfather passed away over 20 years ago now, the likelihood of my being able to find any photos of him either with the car or Monty or both are slim, but he told me himself of the time he spent chauffeuring Monty about during the lead up to D-Day. On a slightly related note, tomorrow is the anniversary of the loss of his brother (a Wellington pilot) during a raid in 1943 - he was 21 ~S~ Bill - I owe you Nick